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Reimagining the Orangeburg Massacre 57 years later

Dr. Willis Ham speaks at the Feb. 8 Orangeburg Massacre ceremony. (Panther photo by Alexis Wilson)

A South Carolina State University graduate has reimagined the Orangeburg Massacre 57 years later with a focus on what might have been for the three students killed.

S.C. State held the annual Orangeburg Massacre memorial ceremony on Feb. 8. As featured speaker, Dr. Willis C. Ham, S.C. State alumnus and businessman, shared his personal mission in recounting the events of 1968.

Ham remembers what it was like living in America before and after the Orangeburg Massacre. Events including the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy shaped the American atmosphere.

“If you were born in the ‘60s, from 1960 to 1970, you were born in what might be the most turbulent decade in the state and the nation's history,” Ham said.

On Feb. 8, 1968, state troopers opened fire at Â鶹´«Ã½ and S.C. State students protesting segregation of a local bowling alley.

During the incident, Henry Smith, Samuel Hammond and Delano Middleton were killed. Smith and Hammond were enrolled at S.C. State while Middleton was a student at then-Wilkinson High School in Orangeburg. Twenty-eight others were wounded.

The event became known as the Orangeburg Massacre through a book titled “The Orangeburg Massacre” by journalists Jack Bass and Jack Nelson.

After the Orangeburg killings, Ham began to share the story of the events throughout the United States.

“There were two things that I thought I had to do at all times: tell the world about the massacre and then have folks understand what it’s like to be an ‘O’ in an ‘X’ environment,” Ham said.

In discussing the Orangeburg shootings across time, Ham said he listened to Harold Kushner, author of the book titled, “When Bad Things Happen to Good People.”

It was then Ham realized that he was engulfed by the tragedies of the killings.

“It was at that point, 16 years from the Orangeburg Massacre, that I realized I had become immersed in it,” Dr. Ham said.

He reconciled with himself the events of the Orangeburg incident and began to tell the story a different way. 

“So, here's what I did with the Orangeburg Massacre and for the three young men who were killed particularly: I gave each of them a persona,” Ham said.

These personas were created so people could have “a face that goes along with the name.” The personas act as characteristics for all three of the men killed in the Orangeburg event.

These personas helped Ham redefine the Orangeburg killings.

Ham imagined that Henry Smith, a well-educated activist and a member of the Black Awareness Coordinating Committee, would go into the Advanced Corps of ROTC in his junior year. He would then finish school and become a second lieutenant in the U.S Air Force and become a Jag Officer, a U.S Air Force lawyer.

He imagined that Samuel Hammond would have lived on the be an NFL quarterback since he was a football player at the time of his passing.

 Delano Middleton would be a center on the Orangeburg-Wilkinson High School football team. He had capability and style, and was able to “snap” the football and tackle anyone, Ham said.